The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)
github.comThe submitted title
> The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)
is editorialised, inaccurate, and very misleading.
The actual title: “if … then … else had to be invented!”
And the content doesn’t say anything about it being a literal translation from German; rather:
> What they do say is that this document was originally written in German and hastily translated into English. I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited.
Wild speculation, and definitely nothing about literality of translation.
As for the author’s description of it being archaic, well, I’d call that misleading too. Bare “else”, arguably (definitely not colloquial in most dialects), but as “or else”, perfectly current.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me that someone considered the options, decided “otherwise”, “or else” too wordy and confusing in its own way, and so settled on bare “else” as the best choice (which I think it is), not how people mostly speak, but perfectly legitimate, and concise.
(In other words: I think we’d have settled on “else” even without the possible German step. This too is speculation, of course.)
The most likely German candidate would be 'sonst', which would be both in common use and short enough for a programming language keyword. E.g. the most likely option for 'if-then-else' is 'wenn-dann-sonst', assuming that German-origin theory is right of course.
One thing that's mostly forgotten today is that German had a very rich 'corpus' of wonderful nerdy computer science words up until the 1990s which unfortunately has fallen out of fashion. Nowadays it's a pretty terrible 'pidgin dialect' when Germans talk about programming and computers to each other (to a point where it's much less awkward to just speak English in the first place lol).
Not sure what the original German version was, but
falls-dann-sonst
would be more correct, since "wenn" is temporal, like the English "when".
Many Germans often use these wrongly in everyday speech, but mathematicians like Friedrich L. Bauer probably wouldn't.
As a German, my experience is that the typical use of "wenn" is more often synonymous to the English "if", rather than the English "when". The meaning of "wenn" is contextual. Using "wenn" to for conditionals is not a mistake of everyday speech but rather a feature of the language.
The other German word "falls" is sometimes also translated as "if" but it carries a slightly different connotation. In typical use "falls" is used for an unlikely condition: "falls es morgen regnen sollte" -> "if it were to rain tomorrow". If "wenn" was used instead of "falls", the connotation would be more like a 50/50 probability. In the end, the if/when split of English is really not the same as the falls/wenn split of German. For computer programming "wenn" would likely have been preferred by German programmers.
Interesting. As a native speaker I always thought that "wenn" for the conditional case was only colloquial, but I couldn't find any real evidence for that. So, you are right about that and also about what you said for "falls".
I always understood "falls" as "in case" (as in, preparing for a slightly unlikely outcome), but my German is weak.
Yeah, you can expand "falls" to "in dem Falle, dass".
Nitpick: "wenn" is both temporal and conditional, whereas "falls" is only conditional, therefore it is considered good style to use "falls" if you want to make totally clear what you mean. It is, however, perfectly fine to use "wenn" for a konditionalen Nebensatz.
Yeah, but "wenn-dann-sonst" rolls better off the tongue ;)
> since "wenn" is temporal, like the English "when".
Nope, "wenn" is both "if" and "when", it's not limited to time.
As a non-native speaker of both English and German, I feel a little difference in usage. I liked this bit of slop:
‘The most significant nuanced departure is that "sonst" can mean "normally," "usually," or "in general," contrasting a specific event against a baseline of normality. "Else" cannot do this.’
There is an etymological root to ‘sonst’ that is also the root of English ‘thus’. The German explanation would fit well in this story (but indeed no evidence presented).
Hmm, to me as native speaker, 'sonst' has pretty much only one meaning which is pretty much exactly 'or else'. There's a longer and 'more archaic' version 'ansonsten'.
Forgive me for trying it out on you:
“Er trinkt heute Kaffee, sonst trinkt er nur Tee.”
It's often used for more immediate 'consequences', like "Ich muß los, sonst verpass ich meinen Zug" (I need to leave, otherwise I'll miss my train).
I worked on a GIS system in a german speaking company, it was very confusing, it was mostly programmed in english, apart from the things we we’re modelling, which had extremely specific and often long german names.
I can't think of anything else.
I would expect there''s plenty of pre-computer media with phrasing along the lines of "Do/don't do X, or else Y will happen."
Else is a given name in Denmark (a variation of Elsa, I'm guessing). At university we had a professor with the surname True; so if he had a daughter, her name could've been Else True. We found that quite funny.
Else If would also be a possible name in Denmark.
But, according to Statistics Denmark[1], none of those combinations exists:
Women with the first name 'Else' 13,047 Men and women with the last name 'True' 166 No one has the name 'Else True'
Women with the first name 'Else' 13,047 Men and women with the last name 'If' 6 No one has the name 'Else If'
[1] https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/hvor-man...
Other Danish'ness:
You'd translate the "else" keyword to "ellers". "if then else" => "hvis så ellers"
Related, the word "or" would be translated to "eller" (without the 's') "and or not" => "og eller ikke"
Also in the English speaking world, but getting rare: Elsie.
I think most Elsies were originally Else, or had a mother or grandmother named it. In Germanic languages the final E is not silent as in English, so you have to spell it Elsie for English people to pronounce it approximately right when they read it off the page.
Elsie would be a completely wrong way of transcribing Else in most Germanic language.
Elsa would be closer.
Or “Elseh”.
Elseh I'll grant, but it feels a lot less natively English, and you can't count on an American clerk or census taker to care about accurate transcription. It may have been closer to "that's not a name in English. Pick either Elsie or Elsa".
And yeah, Elsa was common too.
Elsie sounds more like a German diminutive or pet name of Else than a strict transcription.
It's in the top 10 baby names in the UK
Men with the first name 'Odd' 72
Men with the first name 'Even' 73
Men and women with the last name 'Even' 11
I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.
The author didn't say it was not English.
The author wrote: "I can't use "else" as a conjunction in normal speech, only in computer programs."
No doubt people use 'else' as a conjunction now, due to the influence of programming.
To show the author is completely wrong requires finding pre-1959 uses of 'else' in a conjunction.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=else&year_star...
Google ngrams shows 'else' being used fairly consistently up until about 1880 after which it gradually declines. In the 2000s it rapidly picks up, probably because of the programming influence.
Looking at the actual texts, there are a few German ones listed. Plenty with "someone else", "nothing else". Quite a lot with "or else", for example: "Yea , but what am I ? a scholar, or a schoolmaster, or else some youth".
Ngrams only shows the overall use statistics, and not how "else" is used.
The Wiktionary entry at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/else lists three use forms;
The claim is, I believe, that the conjunction form (the third one) does not predate its use in programming.Adjective: When all else fails, read the instructions Adverb: How else can it be done? Conjunction: Then the Wronskian of f and g must be nonzero, else they could not be linearly independent.The "someone else" and "nothing else" examples you listed are the adjective form.
The "or" in "or else" is the conjunction, not the "else".
You should be looking for something like " "Yea , but what am I ? a scholar, or a schoolmaster, else some youth".
Another thing to check would be if earlier uses were only in binary exclusive cases, like "One if by land, else two if by sea", or also with 3 or more terms, like "One if by land, two if by sea, else three if by air."
I don't know how to carry out this sort of search.
It appears to be rare without the "or", at least from the searches I was able to do.
I did find this example, however:
> "My brother is poor, and I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me."
From Mill on the Floss, published by George Eliot in 1860.
Nicely done!
With "else he may" as a search time, I found other examples in archive.org, like https://archive.org/details/sim_christian-intelligencer_1835... from 1835 .
British PHP uses 'perchance ... otherwise':
- https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were-british/#:~:text=E...
It was this comment what made me realize #:~:text= in the URL isn't some custom, per-site JS hack or a weird way to name your anchors, but actual standard[0] way to link to a text on any page.
[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F...
Chrome and derivatives have a "Copy link to highlight" context menu, which also adds some text surrounding the highlight, but I removed that since it only has a single occurrence.
Newer firefoxes have that too
variable_dump is a bit rude, should be instead variable_answer_the_call_of_nature
PHP stands for Perchance Half-witted Politeness
‘Else’ is not commonly used in English today but the meaning does fit. From Webster’s (1913):
Else, adverb or conjunction
1. Besides; except that mentioned; in addition; as, nowhere else; no one else.
2. Otherwise; in the other, or the contrary, case; if the facts were different.
“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it.” – Ps. li. 16.
After ‘or’, else is sometimes used expletively, as simply noting an alternative. “Will you give thanks, … or else shall I?” – Shak.
> Else’ is not commonly used in English today
I feel like I’m going crazy reading this thread today. Else is not a rare or archaic word.
Else doesn't sound archaic to my ears.
"When you go shopping make sure to buy flour or else we won't be able to bake the cake"
"otherwise" is a more common word choice but "else" is definitely in the active vocabulary of modern English speakers.
"or else" is redundant. One can omit one word or the other and it still works.
> When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, or we won't be able to bake the cake.
> When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, else we won't be able to bake the cake.
EDIT: TIL: Dictionaries don't commonly define "else" as a conjunction, except for Wiktionary. Still sounds natural to my ears, so this is a surprise.
That’s “or else”. Bare else is no longer common.
Someone else might disagree with that
There's also "everything else" and similar phrases
You can also say "elsewise", which to me still sounds a little old school, but more natural than just using "else" like we do in programming languages.
It's almost tempting to reach for "elsewhen" or "elsewhy", since we have "elsewhere". But if saying "elsewise" feels like chatting with a very elderly relative, saying those ones feels more like a seance with distant ancestors. But apparently it used to be a thing!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewho#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhither#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhence#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsehow#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewards#English
Except for the phrase "or else!"
I came here to say this.
I my head as a child I instantly understood and thought "Ahhh, they mean like 'OR else this happens.'
I have always assumed it was a boolean logic thing meant to help show that it wasn't an AND, but 'or' had already been used as a keyword so they did 'or else' and dropped the reserved 'or'.
It’s often used as a threat, without specifying the threat, do this, or else!
"Else" is definitely extremely commonly used in English today, just not in the US. The UK says "else" instead of otherwise. "We'll see if the bar is open, else we can go across the street".
"...or else you'll..."
It's always "or else" when used as a conjunction in modern English.
"Take your coat or else you'll regret it."
"Hurry or else you'll miss the bus."
Etc.
> if something is true, then do a thing, else do a different thing.
> That's just English, right? Except that it isn't
No, it is English, grammatically correct English. It's not idiomatic English but it's a perfectly fine sentence otherwise.
Idiomatic English would simply require adding an or
if(x)
do m
orelseif(y)
do n
orelse
do o
> I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited
This is a weird reach. Else isn't an archaic word.
"Eat your dinner or else."
"If you don't do it someone else will have to."
Plus all the "or else" conjunction examples.
It was probably chosen because it was shorter than "otherwise" and not for any other reason.
There were plenty of long English keywords in early computing: continue, dimension, equivalence, frequency, procedure etc. It seems it was mostly the Lisp folks who strictly shunned long keywords.
It is nor far-fetched to suppose else is a translated German word because that is exactly what happened. The only question is which German word was is it.
> because that is exactly what happened.
No, it's what the author claims to have happened. I am strongly disputing their thesis as spurious.
The document in question specifically says it is a rushed translation of a German document, what's in dispute here exactly?
The claim that "else" is an archaic word and hence a bad/rushed translation.
On the contrary it's a normal everyday word that makes perfect grammatical sense in the given context.
You're arguing with the claim that else is archaic, but this sub-thread is about whether it came from a German translation.
The only German that makes sense would be
wenn ... dann ... sonst
I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.
> I can't use "else" as a conjunction in normal speech, only in computer programs.
sure you can. who's going to stop you?
Hurry up, else we'll be late. You'd better leave now, else you'll miss the bus. Do what I say, else there'll be trouble.
If the addressed person does not comply, you can also add "or else" in a threatening tone.
Such a funny movie.
That is exactly the correct UK usage.
I don't think that is normal UK usage. It sounds odd to me without "or" before the "else" in those sentences. From other comments here, that seems to be true for others too.
"Someone else" sounds correct but else isn't trying to act as a conjunction there.
More common in the North and Scotland, I think.
Scots (the Scots language, not Scottish English) tends to use bare "else" wherever "otherwise" is used in English, so I assume it's coming from the Northumbrian dialect of Middle English and leaks through to those dialects of Modern English with more Northumbrian influence.
That's how my UK friends speak. Maybe it's a regional thing?
someone else ;-)
Perhaps after the robot uprising... https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-program
Else could I?..
The modern universal keywords if, else, for and while are good because they are fairly short and thus quick to type.
Yes, otherwise is more natural but less terse.
We often write "otherwise" in mathematics:
https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2C
https://arxiv.org/html/1302.5008v3#:~:text=otherwise
https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2E
In fact, I think that's the most common alternative, not "else".
"or else" works too but that's still three extra characters
"loop" can all be typed with one finger, as the letters are all together on the qwerty keyboard, and the "o" repeats itself.
"while" on qwerty is sort of a chore.
When you can touch-type, it's better to have keys spread to use separate fingers. That way, you divide up the work. You have one finger still lifting while the other's already starting the next press.
Try it. What's faster to type: one word with a total of 5 distinct letters, or one word with a total of 4 letters, three being distinct?
I understand the theory when writing, you know: sentences. Writing code ain't that. I'm also not typing on a model M. This laptop's keys press down like 1 or 2mm at most. You actually only need to press down twice -- just move your finger from "l" to the "o" depress/press again for another "o" and move right over to the "p".
Do you reprogram your keyboard so parentheses, square/angle brackets, etc can be typed with their respective hands? Naw. When people type numbers all day, are they delighted to use the row of numbers up top, or a numpad? Never have I ever.
I use one finger when typing "loop", because it doesn't make sense to do otherwise given how the respective keys are on QWERTY. That just means the word "loop" sucks.
Regarding parentheses/brackets, I said "separate fingers", not "separate hands". I do use separate fingers for parentheses/brackets.
The numpad is a weird thing. When I've (rarely) needed it for sustained number capturing, I do typically stick to one finger because it's easy to get lost with multiple. Not sure why. It could just be lack of practice with the numpad.
Usually for speed and avoiding strain you want to incorporate as many fingers as possible. In fact it's a common mark against dvorak online that "ls -l" is all typed with the right pinky (not an issue in the workman layout luckily).
Also remember this was typed with typewriters. That gives its own set of constraints. It's quicker to type two different characters than the same character twice in a row, as you need to wait for the typebar to return enough.
This is a good visual to understand it intuitively but your finger itself has a similar issue. In rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin and Muse Dash you only have two distinct notes/lanes but you typically play with 4 (or more) keys. A group of 3 red notes in Taiko is way easier to play by alternating hands back and forth than by spamming one key as fast as you can with the same finger. This somewhat applies to Rock Band as well with alternating strumming being useful for long stretches of notes close together, but a lot of people just brute force their way past that without learning alt strumming. For Taiko I think the alternating is much more important and you won't last without learning it.
What matters is the token count and logprob. It hurts but it's true
Using more fingers allows for faster typing.
There's a joke in here somewhere about machinists.
w TAB in a properly configured emacs
Correct me if I'm wrong– I haven't check on THAT corpse– but couldn't you configure w TAB to be a shortcut for whatever you want (or make your own?).
I'm writing some Crystal (which has Ruby-like syntax) and I'd add `unless` to the list. I like it!
"Unless" feels like adding come-from (next to goto) to a language. A statement/flow should not change its meaning after being declared/written IMHO.
edit: My criticism is for the suffix version to be clear. Unless / else is actually cool.
`destroy_world() if $angry;` is Perl syntax. And Python has `destroy_word() if angry else live_long_and_prosper()`.
(But it's not remotely like come-from.)
P.S. in re the other response, "unless" is "if not". "until" is "while not".
wdym? "unless" is literally "while not", no come-from mechanics
“unless” is “if not” — it is not generally looping construct.
`unless` came from Perl, Ruby adopted it, and so of course did Crystal.
”unless” already existed in early Lisps in the 1970s…
Also in BCPL from late 1960s
wild speculation indeed. According to Google Book Ngrams, the word "else" has been used in english books as far back as the tool permits (1500s) and can be found everywhere - from books to state calendars.
it was probably a rote translation of the German word ‘sonst’
Das denke ich auch.
I found it strange (merkwürdig) that they didn’t mention this in the article.
Yes something like wenn…dann…sonst?
I remember I heard this structure at Uni at some point.
This guy better figure out how to use English, or else something bad will happen.
Don’t even get me started on “elif”
That's a perfectly cromulent Turkish name.
I like elif. It means exactly what I want it to mean!
I also like iff and ffs.
My first CSE class in college was two quarters long and self-paced. We could use the lab all we wanted. I somehow found out the logic and meaning of the term "iff" and so I found a way to appropriately use it in an answer to a quiz. I scored a bonus point, as the TA was impressed. She circled it and made a encouraging comment. I was so pleased to be an apt pupil in that class.
I think the headline is nonsense.
I was going to mention the MAD language by Bernard Galler et. al. that used whenever/otherwise, which I encountered in a book in the local library back in the days when everyone was coming up with "structured" programming languages, but then I scrolled to the bottom of the article ...
I remember it felt odd when XSLT code provided "otherwise" instead of "else".
What about Kierkegaard?
He wrote Either/Or or Enten – Eller in Danish in 1843.
Else in Danish is Ellers.
I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.
No. English has used else to mean "otherwise" since before computers came along. Wiktionary offers this quote from Call of the Wild (1903):
"He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/else#Conjunction
There's also "or else", as made famous in crime dramas: "Meet me by the docks at midnight. Bring the money. Come alone. No cops... or else!" But in other usage it can of course be followed by something. "He had to get to work on time, or else he might be fired."
"or else" is right in the second image, and it's clearly not "else".
Even if it hasn't been invented as the author claims, the question of who used it in code first is a valid one, right?
If something were to be true, then foo.
Or if this other thing were to be true, then bar.
If it’s something else, then baz.
OR if is ambiguous, and wouldn't work like an 'else if' statement. I think you mean XOR.
Nice article.
Funny enough, even though I know if/then/else by heart for decades now, I also spent a few seconds comprehending that 1960 arrow diagram of ALGOL60...
Else can be found in English text prior to computer existence. Else can't be found in a German dictionary as a conjunction [1]. The first suggestion in Duden is the name for alder tree in lower German. Second suggestion is a firstname. If a word would come from German, it seems the first step would be to look up in a German dictionary.
While the look up for history of computer language is interesting, the conclusion is completely wrong.
The claim is that it is a literal translation, not that it is a loan word from German. Ie the Germans wrote their paper for this new control flow in German wenn/dann/sonst, then took their Langenscheidt and looked up "sonst".
I don't think the article author is concluding what you think they are.
The HN title reads "literal translation," which I didn't take to mean "literally".
The linked article doesn't really have a title. The article author states [...] "I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited. Unfortunately we do not have the original German text to consult."
Every single comment I've seen here seems to miss that, in the UK, "else" is the preferred word to use in these contexts.
"We'd better hurry, else we'll be late", or "I could go to a pub, else we can just stay home" is exactly the correct UK usage.
I guess the UK largely isn't up yet, hence this sort of comment missing.
How would you mime "else" in charades?
Article states else is archiac English but later says someone called it ignorantly incorrect English and suggested using "or".
Ive always assumed it was effectively "otherwise" but shortened to "or else" -> "else".
Given the alternative to use "or" as the first pushback I feel that acts as confirmation. I prefer else because "or" has implications in boolean and bitwise logic that else doesn't.
Some languages also have an "unless" keyword!
Perl also has "until" as the inverse of "while".
(It'll also let you use "unless ... else ..." - but please don't.)
But elsif
If ... then ... otherwise ...
Fixed!
if ... then ... neht ... fi
Also, one thing that has been happening without much awareness in the history of computer languages: shorter identifiers win over long identifiers
Why not { } instead of begin and end?
def or fn over function/lambda (or just () => now)
Symbols are confusing at first but become practical after a bit
About TFA: Also 'if/or' would make people confuse logical or with bitwise or, so I guess that's why it was eschewed
Give up this mad idea, or else.
what
> I can't use "else" as a conjunction in normal speech, only in computer programs.
Not true. Here's an example from 1876 in which "else" is used as a conjunction.
> My brother is poor, and I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me.
-- George Eliot ( https://www.victorianlondon.org/etexts/eliot/deronda-0047.sh... )
---
Here's an example of "if ... else" from the 1914 translation of Crime and Punishment ( https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment/Part_IV/... ):
> Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up . . . else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.
1611 Psalm 51:16 (KJV) uses else as a conjunction as well.
> > Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up . . . else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.
It’s not being used in the programming if-else sense here. He’s not saying “if you don’t love me, I shall begin to hate you”. He’s saying “if you don’t give me up, I shall begin to hate you”.
if (you love me):
else:give me upI shall begin to hate you # i feel itThe language construct is exactly that if-then-else, you’re just making the intended inference.
A ? B : C => !B -> C
schizophrenic nonsense
What else could "else" be than german? /s
Note that "what else" is completely proper, standard English, and it has been for centuries.
The English language origin is from programming if/then/else
Very not true.
What if time travel was involved?